{"id":379748,"date":"2026-04-07T15:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/379748\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:34:09","slug":"overlooked-cells-linked-to-poor-outcomes-in-breast-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/379748\/","title":{"rendered":"Overlooked Cells Linked to Poor Outcomes in Breast Cancer\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Huiping Liu, MD, PhD, associate Professor of Pharmacology\u00a0and of\u00a0Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology, who was a co-author of the study.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A little-studied group of cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream may play a bigger role in breast cancer progression than previously thought, according to new research\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Science\u00a0Translational Medicine\u00a0that sheds light on how the disease spreads and why some patients fare worse than others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study\u00a0offers\u00a0new details\u00a0on\u00a0circulating tumor cells, or CTCs\u00a0\u2014\u00a0cells that break away from a primary breast tumor and travel through the blood, where they can seed new tumors in distant organs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

CTCs are already known to be a strong predictor of survival in patients with advanced breast cancer, and they are typically identified by the presence of epithelial markers specific to cancer cells and the absence of markers found on white blood cells, said\u00a0Huiping Liu, MD, PhD<\/a>, associate Professor of\u202fPharmacology<\/a> and of\u202fMedicine<\/a>\u202fin the Division of\u202fHematology and Oncology, <\/a>who was a co-author of the study.\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0can cure primary tumors by surgery\u00a0or\u00a0radiation. However, when tumor cells start\u00a0spreading from one place to another,\u00a0they\u00a0can get\u00a0out of control.\u00a0A\u00a0lot of times it is devastating\u00a0and incurable,\u201d Liu said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a very significant problem in the clinic and also\u00a0affects\u00a0patient\u00a0outcomes and survival time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior studies have\u00a0increasingly\u00a0noted\u00a0a subset of circulating cells that\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0fit neatly into\u00a0traditional definitions\u00a0of tumor cells or immune cells, Liu said. These \u201cdual-positive\u201d cells, or\u00a0DPcells, display both epithelial tumor markers and\u00a0immune system\u00a0markers, suggesting a hybrid or poorly understood\u00a0role. Until now, little was known about their clinical importance, Liu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the study, investigators\u00a0analyzed\u00a0blood samples from 340 patients with advanced breast cancer\u00a0and\u00a0found that\u00a0DPcells\u00a0are far from irrelevant. Patients with detectable\u00a0DPcells\u00a0had significantly worse overall survival than those without them, even after accounting for traditional CTC counts. The effect was especially striking in patients who\u00a0otherwise appeared to have\u00a0a lower metastatic risk\u00a0\u2014\u00a0those with fewer than five conventional CTCs. In these cases, the presence of\u00a0DPcells\u00a0helped\u00a0identify\u00a0patients with poorer prognoses who might otherwise be missed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The impact of\u00a0DPcells\u00a0also varied depending on breast cancer subtype, according to the findings. The association with worse outcomes was strongest in patients with triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-positive disease\u00a0\u2014\u00a0two subtypes known for their aggressive behavior and limited treatment options. In contrast,\u00a0DPcells\u00a0appeared to have less prognostic relevance in hormone receptor\u2013positive disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To better understand whether\u00a0DPcells\u00a0are truly cancerous or merely benign cells caught up in the disease process, the team conducted single-cell genomic analyses on individual cells isolated from patients\u2019 blood. The results suggested that many\u00a0DPcells\u00a0do, in fact, carry cancer-associated genetic changes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA\u00a0big question in the field\u00a0was\u00a0why\u00a0are\u00a0some\u00a0of these\u00a0cells\u00a0double-positive,\u00a0and\u00a0are they really tumor cells or not?\u00a0Should we pay attention to these cells?\u201d Liu said.\u00a0\u201cIt turns out these cells are tumor cells, but they happen to express some normal blood cell markers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Animal experiments offered\u00a0additional\u00a0clues.\u00a0DPcells\u00a0were detected in the bloodstream of\u00a0healthy mice,\u00a0but not in immunodeficient mice. This suggests that the immune system may play a key role in the formation or survival of these dual-identity cells,\u00a0possibly through\u00a0interactions between tumor cells and immune cells.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taken together, the findings challenge existing assumptions about which circulating cells matter most in breast cancer and highlight the complexity of metastasis, the leading cause of death in patients with the disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additionally, incorporating\u00a0DPcell\u00a0detection into blood-based cancer monitoring could improve risk stratification, particularly for patients with aggressive subtypes, Liu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the future, we hope to be able to not only detect these cells,\u00a0but\u00a0also to block them from spreading to make new tumors,\u201d\u00a0said Liu, who is also a\u00a0member of the\u00a0Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center<\/a>\u00a0of Northwestern University. \u201cThe goal eventually\u00a0is\u00a0to\u00a0help\u00a0improve patient outcomes,\u00a0help them have better\u00a0life quality and also extend the patient survival.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Future studies\u00a0will be\u00a0aimed at\u00a0better understanding\u00a0the\u00a0mechanisms\u00a0behind\u00a0DPcells\u00a0and how they may be used as biomarkers or treatment targets in the future, Liu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study was supported by Menarini Silicon Biosystems and by National Cancer Institute grants CA060553, R01CA245699 and R01CA298232, R01AI167272, and American Cancer Society CSCC-Team-23-980420-01-CSCC.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Huiping Liu, MD, PhD, associate Professor of Pharmacology\u00a0and of\u00a0Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology, who was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[165,163,85,46,2409,6003,1360],"class_list":{"0":"post-379748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-medicine","13":"tag-pharmacology","14":"tag-research"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}